In 1946, Fr. Gino Violini was assigned to St. Joseph’s, a small, wooden mission church in Cowley, a village near the base of the Canadian Rockies. It was a poor parish with few people who would come to church. At his first Sunday Mass, nine people were present. His first Christmas collection raised a grand total of $1.13. Fr. Violini had little to live on, slept in a rectory where snow came through the walls and became rather dejected. He sought to be transferred, but his requests were declined.

After one of them was turned down, Fr. Violini headed to the church for morning prayers on the Feast of Corpus Christi. He was surprised, however, to find the church ransacked. The front door was off its hinges, statues inside had been destroyed and the tabernacle had been broken open. Consecrated hosts had been strewn about. He picked them up one by one and, after counting them, found that one was missing. The large Benediction Host was not there.

He contacted Fr. Harrigan at the nearby Crowsnest deanery who organized a search party. Two thousand people joined in, but none from Cowley itself. They seached along a main highway and in parts of various villages in the area, without success.

Then, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police picked up two suspects, in Cowley. Fr. Violini offered to drop all charges against them if they would help him find the Host. They admitted having had the Host at one time, but said they threw it out of their truck window so that it could not be used as evidence against them. They then all got into a police cruiser and headed for the area.

Fr. Violini wondered how the searchers had not found it by the side of the road. As it had been raining, he thought perhaps it had dissolved. If they did find It, It would likely be in poor condition.

As they arrived at the spot, east of the village of Bellevue, each of them saw something that stopped them short. They saw colored rays of light emanating from a center point elevated off the ground. They saw the Host Itself at the center of those rays. Fr. Violini exited the car before it had even stopped and ran toward It. Sergeant Parsons ran after him. They both fell to their knees, Sergeant Parsons doing so in a pool of mud.

Fr. Violini observed that the Host looked fresh and white, without any signs of damage. As he reached up to take possession of It, everyone there heard a voice say, “Father Gino, please take me back to Cowley.”

After this incident, Sergeant Parsons, his wife, his children and two of his constables from Pincher Creek, asked for instruction in the Catholic faith. Catholics in the area began to return to the church. During Mass, the local beer hall would shut down and many of the patrons, even those who were not Catholic, would carry their bar stools to the church and listen to Fr. Violini’s homilies. They even had to remove the pot-bellied stove in the church to make more room for all the people who were now coming.

Source: “Canada’s Eucharistic Miracle,” an article published by the Society of St. Pius X in Canada, which may be found at http://fsspx.com/EucharisticCrusade/2006_April/Canadas_Eucharistic_Miracle.htm.

In November of 1979, a woman was at a family life conference in Canada. Her mind, however, was 1,500 miles away. The woman’s father was seriouly ill in a hospital. He had been there for several weeks. Although she wanted to be with him and the rest of her family, she could not make the trip. She had a husband and two small children, one two years old and one only six months. They needed her at home.

At the end of the conference, a Mass was said. The woman prayed that, if her dad died, he “would know the full glory of the risen Christ.” As the Communion hymn was sung, “I Am the Bread of Life,” she experienced a profound union with her dad, one she could not describe. The words, “He who comes to me shall not hunger … and I will raise him up on the last day,” seemed to be full of meaning intended just for her.

Upon walking in her home, she could her the phone ringing. One of her sisters was calling her with the sad news that her dad had died.

A short while later, she realized that the time of her father’s death was exactly the same time as she felt the indescribable union with him at the time of Communion. She surmised that she had been together with her dad, in spirit, through Christ.

Twenty-five years afterwards, she recounted this story. She also said that every time she hears that song at Communion, she is brought back to the time she was given a special grace.

Sir Richard of Kilkenney was an attorney in Ireland during the 16th century. He was regarded as a rather irreligious man and took some satisfaction in trying to disrupt others from their religious practices. While others were at Mass on Sundays, he was known to take his dogs out for hunting, hoping their barking would distract those attempting to pray.

Thinking to cause a similar nuissance, he once approached a crowd of worshippers. They were awaiting the arrival of the Blessed Sacrament, which was being carried in a procession through the streets. Sir Richard rode toward the group with his hounds and tried to spur his horse through them.
The horse, however, refused to obey. Instead, it was reported to have knelt down and refused to rise until the Blessed Sacrament had passed.

Sir Richard reformed his religious ways after that. According to local tradition, he erected a blue cross on the spot to mark the incident.

St. Lawrence of Brindisi was a native of Naples who often experienced states of ecstasy while saying Mass. One day, immediately after the Consecration, he saw “the Saviour Himself, visibly, in the sacred Host.” He appeared in the form of a little child to St. Lawrence.

Brother Adam de Rovigo was officiating at the Mass. He also “saw the Infant Jesus, and fell as if dead in a faint at the foot of the altar.”

St. Charbel Makhlouf was born in Lebanon in 1828. After spending his first sixteen years as a priest in a monastery, he retired to the Hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul in 1875. For the next twenty-three years, he lived a very austere life, engaging in various forms of mortification.

His life essentially became one large episode of adoration for the Blessed Eucharist. Each day he prepared all morning for Mass, which he said at 11:00 a.m., and then spent the rest of the day in thanksgiving.

While saying Mass one day, he suffered a seizure. The Holy Eucharist had to be pried from his fingers. Eight days later, on Christmas Eve, he died.

The body of this Maronite monk remained incorrupt for over fifty years after his death, despite being found during one exhumation to be floating on a bed of water and mud. He was beatified in 1965 and from that time his body no longer remained exempt from the laws of nature.

Based on an entry in My Daily Eucharist, by Joan Carter McHugh, containing an excerpt from The Incorruptibles by Joan Carroll Cruz. Additional source: http://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2010/10/saint-charbel-sharbel-makhlouf-maronite.html

Father Hartl was present again in Resl’s room after the Midnight Mass on Christmas of 1930. “She felt…in a manner that cannot be explained naturally, the nearness of the Eucharist before it was brought to her…while lying in bed, she described exactly how the pastor (Father Naber) was taking the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle to bring her Communion. She descried vividly his coming to her home. The road was icy and she saw how carefully he walked and made a little detour.” Father Naber tells how, because he stopped en route to visit a parishioner who was sick, he was delayed in arriving at Resl’s home. She knew of this delay…

(Taken from an entry in My Daily Eucharist, by Joan Carter McHugh, containing an excerpt from The Story of Therese Neumann by Albert Paul Schimberg.)

St. Clement of Ancyra was born in Ancyra, capital of modern-day Turkey, in the year 258. He was made the bishop of that city when he was but twenty years old. Suffering severe torture during the persecution against Christians instituted by the Emperor Diocletian (284-305), he was eventually sent to Rome itself.

While in prison there, many came to see him. Late at night, to avoid the suspicion of the guards, he conducted teachings in the Christian faith and performed baptisms. One such night, the people assembled with him saw the prison cell become illuminated by a great light. From the light came a young man in shining garments. He walked to St. Clement and handed him a large Host and a chalice. St. Clement divided the Host and distributed it among those gathered. He did likewise with the chalice.

The next day, many of those there were executed. It is reported that they died joyfully.

St. Clement did not die that day. He would suffer imprisonment and extremely cruel tortures for many years more before finally being beheaded as he stood at an altar performing Mass.

St. Clement of Ancyra is revered today by both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church.

Sources: Cruz, Caroll, Eucharistic Miracles (Charlotte, North Carolina, Tan Books, 2010) p. 254; and “Hieromartyr Clement the Bishop of Ancyra,” an article published by the Orthodox Church in America, http://oca.org/saints/all-lives/2014/01/23.

In 1657, a conference of monks was held at the Monastery of Our Lady of Montserrat in Spain. A young girl approached one of those in attendance, Abbot Don Millán de Mirando, and begged him to celebrate three Masses for the soul of her deceased father. The girl implored him to do it, feeling it would save her father from the pains of purgatory. The abbot was moved by her passion and agreed to do it.

The next day, the girl and her mother were present at the Mass. During the consecration, when the Real Presence comes among the people, the girl saw her father kneeling at the step of the main altar, surrounded by flames. The abbot and the Most Reverend Father Don
Bernardo de Ontevieros, General of the Benedictine order in Spain were skeptical of what the girl related and asked her to put a tissue close to where she saw the flames. She did, and the tissue began to burn with a lively flame.

During the second Mass, the girl saw her father standing next to the deacon, dressed in a vibrantly colored suit.

During the third Mass, she saw her father dressed in a white suit. At the end of the Mass, the girl exclaimed, “There is my father going away and rising into the sky!” The girl then thanked the community of monks on behalf of her father as he had asked her to do. Fr. Ontevieros, the Bishop of Astorga and numerous others were present.

The entire incident is reported in the New History of the Sanctuary and Monastery of Our Lady of Montserrat, written by the Benedictine priest R.P. Francio de Paula
Crusellas.

Source: “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” a Vatican international exhibition, as reported by The Real Presence Eucharistic Adoration Association, http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Montserrat.pdf.

Jeanne Fretel was born on May 25, 1914. Between 1938 and 1946, she was operated upon seven times for tuberculous peritonitis and spent her life from one hospital to another. In 1947, her condition deteriorated further. She was emaciated, unable to get out of bed, needed strong doses of morphine daily and had a high oscillating fever.

In April 1948, the antibiotic streptomycin was prescribed, but by October, all seemed hopeless. Her fever and cachexia (wasting syndrome) were worsening. She was near death.

On October 5, 1948, she was taken to Lourdes, France. On her third day there, she received Holy Communion at the Mass for the Sick. Immediately afterwards, at the Grotto, her stomach had returned to normal, her fever and pains disappeared and a ferocious appetite overtook her. Suddenly, she could get up, walk and eat.

The next day, October 9th, the Medical Bureau verified the absence of signs, noted her weight of 44 kg. and asked her to come again. A year later, in October, 1949, the Medical Bureau noted her gain of 14 kg. and the continuation of her return to health. Considering those factors and the abrupt cessation of her fever and treatment with morphine, the Bureau concluded: “No explanation of this cure can be given. It is beyond the natural laws”.

Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa was born in Balasar, Portugal on March 30, 1904. From 1942 until the day of her death, October 13, 1955, she lived with the Eucharist as her only food.

For a period of 40 days, while in the Foce del Douro Hospital near Operto, she was under the continual care of several doctors. They witnessed her ability to live under this absolute fast.

All this did not occur in a vaccuum. Seventeen years before the fasting began, at age 21, she was paralyzed and left bedridden. Her attitude afterwards was a product of her faith. She told her Lord, “As you are a prisoner in the tabernacle and I am a prisoner on my bed for doing Your will, so we can keep ourselves company.”

Also, from Friday, October 3, 1938 until March 24, 1942, for up to 182 times, she mystically relived the sufferings of His Passion.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 25, 2004.

Source: “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” a Vatican international exhibition, as reported by The Real Presence Eucharistic Adoration Association, http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/Dacosta.pdf.